The bow of Jacks’s mouth dipped down, though not a trace of sadness touched his eyes. He probably wasn’t capable of it, just as he was said to be incapable of love.
… his heart had stopped beating long ago. Only one person could make it beat again: his one true love. They said his kiss had been fatal to all but her—his only weakness.
Oh, how Tella wished she was his weakness. She’d have loved to destroy him.
Tella often imagined she knew what people thought when they saw her. One look at her honey-blond curls, her girlish smile, and her pretty dresses, coupled with the fact that she liked to enjoy herself, and people dismissed her as a silly girl. Tella might have been many things, but she was far from silly or worthless or whatever labels people liked to affix because a person was young and female. Tella liked to think that was where much of her strength came from.
She was bold. She was brave. She was cunning. And she was going to come out of this triumphant—no matter the cost.
“If you’d brought me Legend’s name,” Jacks said, “this would have turned out differently.”
“If that’s true, why do you now want more than just his name?”
“Why settle for only a name when you can win the game and give me Legend?” Jacks’s tone was dismissive, as careless as his idle posture. But Tella believed there had to be much more to his demand. She wanted to press him further, but she doubted he’d tell her exactly what he wanted with Legend. And there were other questions Tella needed answers to more.
She leaned back in her seat, mimicking Jacks’s cavalier pose. “How do I know any of this is real? How do I know you’re not merely playing a part in Legend’s game?”
“You want proof that I’m a Fate and my kiss will truly kill you?” Amusement lit Jacks’s eyes; it seemed he was capable of emotion after all, because the idea of demonstrating how deadly he was appeared to excite him a bit too much.
“I’ll pass on that,” Tella said. She didn’t actually believe Jacks was part of Legend’s game. His kiss had not been worth dying for, although if Tella had never actually died, she might have argued otherwise. Kisses were meant to be temporal, brief but exquisite moments of pleasure. But Tella could have kissed Jacks into eternity. It wasn’t just the way his lips had moved over hers, it was the desire behind them, the wanting, the way Jacks had made Tella feel as if she were the one person on earth he’d spent his entire existence searching for. In that moment she’d managed to forget she’d been left by her mother and repeatedly suffered at the hands of her father, because Jacks had made her feel as if he’d hold on to her forever. It might have been the most convincing lie she’d ever been told.
Then she’d seen him glowing, and Tella had known. She still didn’t understand how no one else at the ball had seemed to notice it. Even now, some of the glow had worn off, but Jacks still looked utterly inhuman, viciously beautiful. Capable of killing with only one press of his lips.
It was still surreal to believe he was a Fate. She wondered how long he’d been back on earth, and if the other Fates had returned as well. But she didn’t know how many more minutes he’d humor her, and she still needed answers to other questions.
“I want my mother’s real name,” she said, “and proof you know where she is and that you’ll bring me to her after all of this is done. That’s the only way I’ll believe this is all real.”
Jacks twisted one of his teardrop cuff links—or was it supposed to represent a drop of blood? “I think you know this is real, but I’ll humor you.”
The coach dipped as Jacks reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp rectangular card.
Even in the carriage’s dim lighting the print on it was unmistakable. Such a dark hue of nightshade it was almost black, with tiny hints of gold flecks that sparkled in the light and swirly strands of deep red-violet embossing that still made Tella think of damp flowers, witch’s blood, and magic.
Bumps rose all over Tella’s arms.
It was one of the cards from her mother’s Deck of Destiny. Tella had seen other decks over the years, but all of them had been inferior to the glowing, almost magical images on the deck of cards her mother had possessed.
Tella warred with the desire to reach for it and leap out of the carriage before it could predict another ill future.
But when Jacks turned the card around it did not reveal a Fate. It showed an alarmingly lifelike picture of her mother, Paloma, with dark locks of hair cascading over shoulders that looked thinner than Tella remembered. Paloma stood with her palms outward, as though pressed hard against a window, almost as if she were trapped inside of the card.
“This is where your mother has been for the past seven years,” Jacks said.
Tella pried her eyes away from the card to see if the Fate was toying with her, but the amused glimmer that lit his eyes moments ago was gone. His face had turned as cold as the blood now chilling Tella’s insides.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Which part? That it’s your mother, or that she’s been trapped inside this card?”
Jacks set the card atop Tella’s clenched fists. It did not tingle like the Aracle, it throbbed, painfully slow, a dying heartbeat. Tella knew it was dying because it matched her own slowly beating heart.
It couldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be real. But Tella found herself believing it was real as the card’s weak heartbeat continued to thud against her fist. “How is this possible?”
“It’s easier than you would think,” Jacks said, “and I can tell you from experience it’s torturous.”
A slice of moonlight fell into the carriage, illuminating Jacks’s face. His expression was impassive, but for a moment he looked so pale, Tella swore she saw the skeleton beneath his skin. She’d definitely been wrong to think him incapable of emotion. Perhaps he was unable to love, and maybe his other feelings weren’t that of a human being, but the terror that had just pulsed from him was so powerful she’d felt it.
“You were trapped inside of a card,” Tella breathed.
Jacks tilted his head away from the moonlight so that his features were shadowed in dark, making it impossible to read his face as he said, “Where do you think all the Fates went when we disappeared so long ago?”
Tella’s stomach plummeted as the coach began its descent. She’d heard rumors the Fates had been banished by a witch. Others said they’d turned on one another. There was even one story that claimed the stars had transformed them back into humans. But she’d never heard that the Fates were all trapped inside of cards.
“But that’s a tale for another time,” Jacks said. “All you need to worry about is winning the game so you can bring me Legend.”
Jacks’s gaze fell to the crumpled star in Tella’s hand—the first clue, which she’d not even looked at. “Open it.”
When Tella didn’t move, Jacks took it from her hand, unfolded it, and read aloud:
* * *
THE OTHER CLUES YOU’LL NEED ARE HIDDEN
THROUGHOUT THE CITY;
TO POSSESS THE SECOND ONE,
VENTURE SOMEWHERE PRETTY.
THIS REGION OF VALENDA WAS ONCE SO TRAGIC,
BUT NOW IT PROMISES FAITH AND MAGIC.
* * *
He paused. “It sounds like the Temple District.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for that insight?” Tella snarled.
“I’m attempting to save you time.” His tone took on more of a bite. “I might have delayed the full power of my kiss, but you will still experience some of its effects. The game ends at dawn on Elantine’s Day, giving you five more nights to find the remaining clues. I’m the only one who can free your mother. If you lose the game and fail to bring me Legend, she will remain trapped inside this card forever, and you will die—”
He cut off as the coach landed heavily on the ground.
Tella reached for the door.